Chicken Coop Update

The new chicken coop has been in service for a couple of months. After our old coop burned down, we had less than two weeks to get a structure up before we left town on a four day trip. Historically, Macduff building projects don't happen that fast--two years maybe, but not two weeks. However, through God's provision and some good old fashioned hard work, the coop was built (though not yet painted) by that two week deadline.

The coop burned down on Saturday evening. By Sunday evening Matt and the kids had cleared away all the debris (what was left of it that is, there really wasn't much, the fire was so hot that even the aluminum around the windows melted).Matt was also able to purchase wood and siding via Craigslist on Sunday. This saved us a bundle and we only ended up purchasing a few sheets of plywood and some shingles new. Matt also found a quirky louvered door on Craigslist. All we needed to complete the project was a couple of windows.

We had no intention of buying new windows for a chicken coop, so I searched every thrift store, junk yard and building material resale store in town. We didn't want anything fancy. We didn't even care if the windows were the same size, we just wanted the ability to open them in order to provide some cross ventilation in the summer. If we had desired for the chickens to have picture windows, we'd have been in business, but I couldn't find any smaller sized windows.

At one point, Liz and I sat in the parking lot of a local window installation store and prayed that the Lord would provide windows. "By tonight," we said, "because we have people coming over to our house tomorrow morning to help with the coop raising."

This really should have been the end of our hunt. I should have gone home and just waited to see what the Lord would do, but instead I started working the problem even further. I called my dad and asked him to look at the junk store in his town. Now let me just say, my dad has never set foot in that place, so I knew I'd be asking him for a huge favor. But, fatherly love won out and he went down there and purchased some "very dirty" aluminum larger-sized windows (because they didn't have small ones) for his firstborn. Yes, he loves me.

However, that evening at 9:30 I got a call from a friend. She just happened to have two nearly new identical (and small) vinyl windows with screens. She wanted to give them to me. The only problem--my friend lives and hour north of here. Well, guess what? My dad, as it just so happened, needed to drive through that town the next day to drop off my mom at a family bridal shower. Then he would be heading to our house to help with the chicken coop while I attended the bridal shower with my mom. So dad stopped on the way, picked up the windows at my friend's house, dropped off mom at the church and then delivered the windows to our place. The guys were able to place the windows while we girls enjoyed a leisurely afternoon with family and friends. Now is that a God thing or what?
So the coop was mostly built by the end of the weekend. A big shout out goes to our two dads, Sherman from Matt's work, our brother-in-law Chris, Kyle from church and Eli (Paul's friend) for helping Matt and Paul make that possible. During his next available weekend, Matt painted the coop with leftover house paint. God provided in a big way for this project in terms of help and materials. We were able to build this coop to nearly identical specifications of the original, but at half of the cost. Paul paid for part of the materials out of his egg earnings, so he learned another good lesson about running a business--accidents happen, but they'll often cost you.

It's cool to see God work out small problems like burned down chicken coops. He's pretty neat that way.